Food Business Marketing Podcast | Brand Strategy, Sales, & Growth for Food & Farm Brands

After you invest time developing your brand strategy to position your brand to stand out then you're ready to put your plan into action. You see all the opportunities to make changes but there are so many opportunities that it can be intimidating. So the big question at this phase is typically what "what should I do first and who can help me?!" Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host...

This week, we're revisiting episode 49 from last year that is still super relevant today. We've been talking through brand strategy our last few episodes, and this refresher on common brand strategy mistakes and how to fix them is worth a second look. Enjoy! Brand strategy is an essential part of building a business that will grow, but we see a lot of food businesses make the same mistakes when it...

If your food brand were a person at a party, what sort of person would they be? The loud, bold life of the party? Or the more relaxed, reserved, and clever person? Just like with people, our brands can take on personalities based on our vision and positioning in order to connect with the right people. It's important to let your brand's "true colors" shine through to help set your brand apart. Havi...

It can be hard to know where to start when you're thinking about how to set your food brand apart. You believe in the potential for your product to turn into a strong brand but, as the saying goes, "a vision without a plan is just a dream." That's why we spend so much time on brand strategy: to give you the framework you need to put your vision into action. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing...

One of the best things you can do for your brand is to talk to people. But how do you know if you're asking the right questions to the right people? Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva shares a trick she normally reserves for her 1-on-1 clients: the two best questions you can ask when you're talking to current or potential customers. In Thi...

Every time we take a leap—whether we fly to the level we want—we are strengthening our wings. But we don't have to just wait and see what happens when we leap because it's never good to feel like we're stuck in mid-air for too long. The resources, tools, and people we surround ourselves with make an enormous difference in terms of how likely we are to fly to a new level. Today on the Real Food Bra...

Developing your brand strategy helps you get clear about how you can stand apart in your category and reach the people you need to speak to in order to grow. But when should you do this work? Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva illustrates why the best time to get started on your brand strategy is right now , and how this work has made a di...

A potential client once asked a really good question as he was reviewing his proposal from Katie: what is not included in the scope of the brand strategy work we will be doing together? Not only is this is a great way to be clear with collaboration in an area of your business that you are less knowledgeable about, but it also helps you understand more precisely what something is by defining what i...

When you start a business, there can be a lot of pressure to find instant success and rapid growth. The truth is, however, that you can build sustainable long-term success without needing to be the next unicorn brand. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva is talking to Elliot Begoun, founder of TIG, formerly known as The Intertwine Group. In...

How can you get the right people excited to try your products, know what to expect, intrigue them to think about how else they can use it, AND be excited to part with their money to get their hands on what you're selling? It's a simple answer that applies to every food and beverage business in some way, yet many emerging brands don't spend enough time on -- appetite appeal. Today on the Real Food...

When you're working on marketing and promoting your food business day in and day out, it's normal to start to feel like you're repeating yourself and to worry that you may sound boring. However, consistency is a vital part of building a strong brand. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva explains why consistency is such a crucial component of...

An old saying in Marketing is "don't talk about features, talk about benefits." And while many of us nod our heads in agreement, the truth is that you need to understand both, and many business owners and marketers don't know how to get started and put that advice into action to build a strong brand. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziv...

In Part 1 of this two-part series on Amazon you learned how SEO and search terms work on Amazon, and in Part 2 we're continuing the conversation about using that information to create advertising campaigns on Amazon that convert and how to get the data that will help you optimize over time. For part two of our Amazon Series on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strat...

Amazon is a growth channel for many food and beverage brands, but how do you stand out in the sea of options? And how do you improve the chances that your brand will show up in searches that will actually convert to sales? In this episode of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks with Shannon Roddy, Amazon Expert, founder of Marketplace Sel...

On the path to build your brand, there are always new developments that force you to consider whether you should stay the course or make an adjustment. But how do you know when it's time to make a pivot? And what can you do to make sure you stay aligned with your core brand strategy principles? This week on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva...

Ecommerce is one of the hottest topics in the food business. However, if you try to jump straight to tactics without thinking through your goals, you're likely to run into trouble. Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva talks to Chelsea Jones and Rachel Saul, founders of Chelsea and Rachel Co., an Ecommerce agency and certified Shopify P...

Social media is a powerful tool to learn about and connect with your consumers. But what are you doing with those insights? Are you using them to really inform and shape your brand strategy and brand activation? If your food business isn't currently leveraging insights from social media, you may be wondering how you even get started? For this episode of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host...

On February 5th, Katie is launching her new Brand Strategy Streamlined program, which provides content, coaching, and collaboration to define, align, and activate your brand strategy. It's a combination of on-demand content you can move through at your own pace and live coaching and guidance to help you along the way. One of the key outcomes of a successful brand strategy is a clear brand story st...

Your consumer needs and company advantages are at the core and your brand strategy, but you need something to tie everything together into a unified front. You may hear it referred to as your Brand Essence, or Big Idea. It's the singular idea or concept that you want to come to life and run throughout everything you do to bring your brand strategy to life. In this episode of the Real Food Brands M...

In this special bonus episode of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva sits down for a roundtable discussion with industry experts Alli Ball, of the Food Biz Wiz podcast, and Sarah Delevan, of the Good Food CFO podcast, to talk about the three pillars of a successful food business. You'll hear them talk about how brand, financials, and sale...

Brand Strategy can feel like a topic that is reserved for big food businesses more than emerging food businesses, but the concepts matter to brands of all sizes and make a big difference if you take the time to get clear about who your brand is at the core, who you serve and how you meet your consumers' needs in a way your competitors can't, or won't, to set your brand apart. In this episode of th...

It's safe to say that no matter who you are or what your goals were for 2020, things probably didn't quite go as planned. The critical thing to remember is that with everything that's changed in 2020, there are also new opportunities we're not seeing if we focus only on what didn't go as planned. For our end-of-the-year episode of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand S...

When it comes to Marketing Planning, Katie likes to say that 1+1=3. In other words, when all of your tactics are working together based on your marketing strategy, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This week on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva shares a three step process for marketing planning to help you better create your pl...

Brand Strategy is the "North Star" to guide everything you do in your food business, but how do you actually go about using it in the day-to-day decision making that comes with leading a business?  For this episode of the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Bev Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva sits down with Maria Capecelatro and Tom Miner, co-founders of Unwrapp'd, an energy bite co...

Collaborating with a marketing agency can do a lot of good things for your brand, but you need to do some homework to make sure you find the right partner for your business, and then align them with your brand strategy. What you need is a creative brief, something that helps your potential partners know what you're looking for and how they can knock it out of the park for you. On this episode of t...